CLVI - libestraum without scratch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkXOrkeZyqQ

in some other world, i am holding your hand in mine and my eyes are closed and we listen to this libestraum without scratch.

CLIV - reality

not that long ago i went and floated in a big pool, easing out my mind. i must have been weary about something. the feeling of physical exertion and the lapping swaying whirling. the gentle swashing swirling gurgling. being and expanding and not being and distending. just floating.

waking up and walking in the toasty sunlight after that, i remember very clearly walking past a very pretty girl. i think we had a small look, and that was about it. i think she smoothed her hair and tucked it behind her ear. in my mind she smiled and i probably looked quizzical.

after that i had this steadfast feeling that life wouldn't pass me by.

tonight as i treaded out of the office, i looked up at the wan night sky and smelled the arid, breezeless darkness and i thought to myself, oh, what i wouldn't give to feel alive again.

CLIII - we are

every once in a while, i am reminded of a child's smile. a little girl, a little girl who became my friend one night two years ago, at a dinner event. i was to play guitar. after the playing i went outside and played with all the little kids whose parents and grandparents sat at dinner. i remember there were many children and i talked and played with all of them. we played hide and seek, i was a dinosaur, we looked at dinosaur learning cards. it was a thing that i was part of, in my place.

this little girl was very shy. some are and some aren't. usually you say hi and if they're okay it's okay and that's it. most aren't too shy when i say hi. some are but i like to talk them out of it. so i think i get on okay with kiddies. in fact i think i get on very okay.

this little girl was very shy. all the other little kiddies were yapping on and on already and this little girl was standing a little farther away, not quite ready to join in the okaying. i made sure to say hi, and ask her if she liked dinosaur cards. or something. it didn't matter. she answered, i think she answered. of course, she kept quiet for a while more, and all the while all the other little kiddies were on full okay. before long we broke into hide and seek. and she joined, and we had a lot of fun.

after that we sat down. i think we went back to just yapping. and i can't remember what i said but suddenly she said something (what it was i don't remember at all now) and she made me a smile. a smile that i will remember to my last day. it was a pure smile, a wonderful smile. the kind i suspect only children can make, and with every last bit of their little children hearts. she smiled like i was her teddy bear brother come back with a red bean potong in my hands to give her, only it came out of nothing and it wasn't in exchange for anything. it was that pure. a smile so true and so innocent and so full, a smile that she was pleased to make and which you realised was delightful for her to make. i don't believe i'll ever see a smile like it again. a man might believe in anything when given a smile like that. it was a pure human expression, and it was the best kind of all such expressions.

i think about it every once in a while. it makes me think that all of us are capable of transcending things with what we are, humanly. many things, that we can transcend many things. that with the best that we are, we are capable of transcending so many things.

CLII - to past things

how often i think of you, my brother. when have i ever been sick, when have i ever been weak? no, brother, no. RIP, my dear old friend.

but how often also do i think of you, my dear girl. i am the pieces of a puzzle that i wanted to build with you. but the puzzle is no more; yet the pieces remain, and i am become the pieces that i wanted them to be. never mind the tautological (re)construction or the misconceived teleology. what i am now is this - i am, advertently, the pieces of a puzzle that fit nowhere, because your pieces are gone. if only i had never loved you! could not less be asked of me, after all.

CLI - my friend

goodbye, ali. may we be friends in another life.

CL - a thinking man

"Luke 10

 ... 

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

Hebrews 11

Faith in Action
1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
4 By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.
5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Ephesians 2

Made Alive in Christ 

1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

 [emphasis added]

i have said for the longest time that i am trying to love God with all my mind. and what is that? to me, it is to apply, as far as possible, a human understanding to the concept of the Christian God, without stretching either the former epistemology or the latter theology past a point where either becomes fairly unrecognisable. in the vernacular, it is to turn to the dark side.

by that token, it suggests that i am putting together chalk and cheese. my mind does not have faith. that seems to be definitionally right. but is that capital C right?

perhaps what is meant in the Word by "love ... God with ... all your mind" is to take certain premises on faith and then to rationally accept and praise God. but to be blunt, that is a cop out or i'm a monkey's uncle. and yet, that seems to be what the above passages suggest to be right, capital C right.

thus my journey ends? surely not!

boy it's hard to be a thinking Christian.

CIL - so sing

i should have known better than to talk about you.